Wilfredo Vazquez Jr. Retires Cristian Mijares With TKO in Three

By Miguel Rivera

Former world champion Wilfredo 'Papito' Vazquez scored a knockout win over another former champion, Cristian 'Diamante' Mijares, in the third round.

And in addition to relaunching his own career, Vazquez ended the Mexican veteran's career in the professional ranks in the main event of card being staged by Promotions del Pueblo, Cancun Boxing and Boxing Time Promotions at the Centenario Auditorium of Gómez Palacio, Durango.

The contest was pushed, for the entire promotion, as the final fight in the career of Mijares.

Vazquez landed a tremendous right hand to the face of Mijares - and that not only sent him to the canvas, but it also hurt him pretty badly and that was the end of the fight for the Mexican boxer who at one time was viewed as one of the top pound-for-pound fighters in the sport.

According to Mijares' handlers, the punch caused a severely broken nose and a lot of pain.

Mijares left his professional mark with a record of 59-9-2 with 27 knockouts, while Vazquez improved his record to 25-7-1 and 20 knockouts.

Coming into this fight, Mijares had won his last ten fights in a row.

His last defeat came in 2014, when he lost a twelve round unanimous decision to then WBC super bantamweight champion Leo Santa Cruz.

But, the contest with Vazquez was several weight classes higher - at the lightweight limit.

This was the first knockout loss for Mijares since getting stopped by Vic Darchinyan all the way in 2008, in their super flyweight (115-pounds) unification.

Vazquez on the other hand was coming back from a long layoff. He was inactive since October of 2016, when he suffered an eleventh round knockout loss at the hands of countryman Juan Manuel Lopez.